Disney Q4 earnings: What Wall Street will be watching on Thursday

Disney (DIS) is scheduled to release its fourth quarter earnings results this Thursday, November 13. Yahoo Finance senior reporter Allie Canal joins the Morning Brief team in assessing Wall Street expectations for the House of Mouse, including in key areas like theme park and cruise operations and streaming.

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Video Transcript

00:00 Speaker A

You know, it's funny Allie, we keep hearing from strategists, yes, of course they're paying attention to macro stuff, but we keep hearing over and over again, earnings strength is what is driving this market. Um, and in terms of, you know, we're through the sort of the the thick part of earning season, but we still have some big ones this week including Disney, which is on your beat. So what should we be looking for there?

00:17 Allie

Yeah, well, it's interesting because Disney usually has these really strong results, but we are expected to see a step back in profit this quarter, along with a much slower pace of revenue growth. So earnings expected to come in at $1.4 a share. That's down from $1.14 one year ago. Revenue is expected to tick up just around 1% to 22.8 billion. Now, if you look at the various revenue sectors that make up this company, remember, Disney is not just a pure play

00:45 Allie

streaming company or a pure play parks business. It really has this synergy that makes the company tick. The parks business is expected to be strong. Now, that does include cruises. It continues to remain one of the bright spots for this company. Revenue expected to rise about 7% to 8.8 billion. This comes after strong international travel and higher pricing that's expected to help offset some of that competition from Universal's Epic Universe and that opened up

01:06 Allie

in May of this year. And while the new Disney Adventure cruise ship that has been delayed until March, cruises are largely still expected to be a major growth driver heading into 2026. So I expect some more color on that on the earnings call. Now, streaming, as with all these media companies, continuously front and center there. Disney Plus subscribers are expected to come in at a total of 130 million. We have seen price increases across the various Disney streaming

01:29 Allie

properties between 10 to as much as 20%. So that is all in the name of chasing these profits, having more sustained margins within within the streaming business, which has been a big focus point for CEO Bob Iger.

01:43 Allie

Now, that push is expected to help margins heading into 2026 along with a strong content slate. And then finally, with sports, that continues to stand out. We have early demand for the new ESPN streaming service that has been strong. Again, on the earnings call, I I would expect analysts to ask a lot of questions about the ESPN direct-to-consumer platform, how is it performing as we continue to see the NFL season move along. And then I mentioned Bob Iger

02:08 Allie

and that of course is in the background, who is going to take over for Bob Iger's position. He is expected to step down at the start of 2026. So this could be the last earnings report report that we get without knowing who that next successor will be. So that's going to be a big, big topic point for investors.

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